The Will and the Sword
by Rihaku
Summary: Life, love, and war. Falling apart, and coming together again. This chapter: Kira remembers the day he met her. 'Strange how the sky was bloodstained, and yet so achingly blue...'
1. A Day to Die

**Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Seed.**_  
_

_The heart has reasons which reason does not know. _

_-Blaise Pascal _

---

"Beginning descent. First layer traversed. Trigger deceleration protocol. Trajectory good."

The air howled like a wraith outside, but in the suit there was only a dim rattling. He thumbed the controls idly, eyes scanning the panel. Even after a dozen battles, anxiety plagued him. He wondered if it would go away, if he did this long enough.

"Deceleration to Mach 3. Aerodynamic control re-established."

_The first three seconds. It's always the first three seconds. _

Though it was eighty degrees in the cockpit he felt terribly cold. Sweat formed a frozen sheen against his chest. His heartbeat thundered like war drums in his ears.

The computer guidance system clicked off. He gripped the joystick, palm moist in the coarse fabric glove, and felt his body lurch forward and leave his stomach behind.

It seemed unreal, almost, the speed at which they fell, shivering human bodies in coffins of steel. The main camera showed clouds whirling past, an infinite expanse of blue. He marked them in his mind: an unconscious habit from his meteorology days.

_Cirrocumulus...Cirrostratus…Nimbostratus…Stratocumulus…_

His heart threatened to pound out of his throat. When had his uniform gotten so tight? He took another deep breath, nose wrinkling at the stale filtered air, and his hand stopped shaking.

_It was shaking? _

His throat was so dry. Hadn't he taken a sip before they fell? It didn't matter now. He breathed a silent prayer, then cleared his throat.

He stole a last gaze at the picture he had clipped to the top of his cockpit. _Marianne…_

"Alpha 1 reporting. Weapons loaded, ready to fire."

"Bravo 2."

"Charlie 3."

"Delta 4."

"Activating pre-programmed descent coordinates. Decelerating to Mach 1."

_She pressed her hands against his. Again, he was amazed at how small they were. Her eyes were wet, even more beautiful than normally._

_He needed some water. _ _"Mari…I'll avenge your father." He was shocked at the steel in his own tone. _

_Tearing, she shook her head, obsidian locks flying. "No. You just…do your duty. Father wouldn't want us to be poisoned by revenge." _

He swallowed his fear.

_My duty is to protect you. _

"For King and Country."

"King and Country."

"King and Country."

Below: green and blue, a continent, then a city. The pod snapped open and they spiraled downwards, in freefall. His eyes flicked constantly over the instrument banks, so they did not see the picture shake loose from the juddering and fall to the floor.

---

_It is too beautiful of a day to die. _

Kira peered upwards, into the sun, and saw the reinforcements falling towards them, wings corkscrewing, dipping and plunging downwards in a seemingly random formation.

They had a pretty good evasion alogrithim. A pity.

He murmured to himself as he brought the rifle up, scope searching the blue: "Pull the trigger, switch."

He felt a twinge of sorrow as his thumb depressed the firing button. The massive gun shuddered backwards, spent shell clinking on the ground, and far, far, above, one of the mobile suits blossomed into flame.

He activated his commlink while aiming for the second. They gazed at him for a moment, startled. Did they believe that the action was over, that easily?

Finally, it was Athrun who spoke up first. "What is it, Commander?"

There was a pause before he answered – the enemy pilots were veterans, swerving like frenzied birds, and his reticule felt clumsy, targeting them at this distance – but then he pushed the trigger again and a second burning flower rippled across the sky.

"Enemy reinforcements. Did you think we would get off that easily? Their landing site will be x347, y651. Athrun, move to the location and prepare to engage in close combat. Cagalli, alert the ground troops and _Narbareck_, then move to assist. Lacus, pick off any unopened pods, then provide fire support."

_Pull the trigger, switch._

* * *

Well this is my new story, composed mainly of vignettes and shorts. It'll be updated pretty frequently, so check back a lot. 

Thanks for reading. Please review!


	2. Cagalli

"_To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's life. It is no less than a __denial__ of the soul."_

_-Oscar Wilde _

_---_

_Sheesh. And he calls _me_ bossy. _

At times like this I like to dream that I'm somewhere nice, doing other things. Maybe working at a toxic waste plant or a landfill or something. I can dream, can't I?

My brother is probably the absolutely worst sibling you could ask for. He's arrogant, annoying, insensitive, patronizing, insufferable, a workaholic, and way too tall. Sometimes when we talk I'm almost glad our parents got divorced – imagine what it would be like, meeting the guy every day!

You know the first (and only) time I cried in front of him – shut up, I was six and I'd broken my ankle, okay? - he didn't even _try_ to comfort me? I mean, what sort of brother is that?

_It was one of those days that our parents had decided to get together, this time in Japan, where my dad and Kira lived (I'm supposed to call them tou-san and nii-san when I'm there. I don't). Our parents just sat and looked awkward at each other, so Kira and I decided to have a race. Well, he was studying again, so I decided we would have a race, and eventually, he, too, saw reason. _

_The sun was painfully bright outside and it was hard to see on my bike. I was still struggling to control my senses, so it was hard to keep up with him, even though he was running on foot. _

_Because he was being stupid and running so fast, I pedaled to catch him, and didn't see the rock in my way. There was a blazing white flash of pain, and when I looked down my foot was turned the wrong way, and parts were red. When I tried to touch it, I recoiled like it was a dead thing – it hurt that much. _

_I tried not to cry. I really did. The tears burned my eyes so much that eventually I had to let them go, beading down my cheeks like drops of oil. The heat of shame that flushed through me was worse than the pain in my ankle. _

_And the guy stops running, turns around, and says: _

"_Stop crying. It won't solve anything." _

_What a jerkface! That's all he said! I stared at him for a moment before he sighed and came over to help me up. _

"_We're going to be soldiers, Cagalli. Cry if it makes you feel better, but it won't fix your ankle. We need to get you to a doctor. Father will know what to do." He was infuriatingly patient. _

As if I didn't know all that! Jeez, he wasn't the only Ultimate Coordinator there! And he had no right, absolutely none, to talk down to me like that just because he's two years older.

One of the reasons I dislike the Japanese language is because it has different words for older and younger siblings. In English it's way simpler: just "brother" or "sister." There's no implication of inferiority or superiority. Two years hardly matters, anyway – it won't when we're adults. Sometimes I wish we were born twins, so he wouldn't have the age gap to lord over me.

I never imagined that one of the consequences of Ambassador Clyne and the others signing that treaty would be us working together. If I had known, I would have bombed that place, Lacus' father or not. Come to think of it, I don't think they did a very good job with the treaty anyway: couldn't they think of a better name than 'The Four Powers Pact?' At least something original?

Whatever. As irritating as Kira is, this guy, the one he told me to assist, is way worse, Athrun Zara or Zala or something. I could tell he was a loser the moment I set eyes upon him. He's like a cross between some effeminate trashy pop star and a brainless killing machine: thin as a rail and with a posture as rigid, but with huge buglike green eyes and some sort of disgustingly slick hairstyle.

Besides that, I just found out he's a completely brownnoser.

I mean - 'Yes, Commander?' Kira's only a Lieutenant.

And that haircut is completely homosexual. Not that I have anything against them - in fact, I don't want to offend them by grouping him in their number.

Speaking of hair, why is his blue? I wonder if he dyed it, or if it's just naturally that stupid color.

The worst thing is, I think he's interested in me. When he introduced himself to Kira and Lacus, he was "Second Lieutenant Athrun Zala," but after he shook my hand he claimed to be "Second Lieutenant Athrun Zala, of the Order of Teutonic Knights."

What the crap? Well, suffice to say, I'm not attracted to him. Not in the least – and especially not if I have to pull his fat out of the fire.

I tug my hairband to make sure my ponytail is secure, blow a few wispy strands out of my eyes, and prepare to kick butt. We mowed though the first wave of resistance pretty easily; how hard could these reinforcements be?

* * *

Yep, it's an AU, sporting some moderately OOC characters. The core of each character is intact, I think, but I made adjustments to their histories. This takes place in the AD timeline.

If you have questions, don't be afraid to ask. I'll be explaining stuff in future chapters but you can have a sneak peak if you ask nicely.


	3. Athrun

Long quote this time.

* * *

My name is Athrun Zala. I am a Stage-3 Engineer Type Coordinator, the son of Patrick and Lenore Zala (now Lenore Clyne). I am a second Lieutenant in the EAD, a Knight of the Teutonic Order, and my nation's envoy to the Gundam Collaborative project, which started three months ago at the signing of the Four Powers Pact.

* * *

My father told me to introduce myself in that manner. He says it makes him proud, to see his son an officer.

It's embarrassing, really. People think I'm arrogant because I tell them I'm a Knight, but it was one of the few requests my father made of me, before I joined the Project. My rank, after all, is one of the few things he still has to be proud of.

Compared to Kira Hibki or Captain Le Creuset, I don't think I'm a very special guy. I go to a private school in the state of Germany when I'm not on Project business. I end up missing about half of my schoolwork and have to work copiously at home to make it up, so I don't have very many friends. The only reason I received my rank is because I was chosen for the Project. Like most Stage 3 Coordinators, I am genetically calibrated to perform one job exceptionally well.

Unfortunately, that job doesn't happen to be the one I'm currently doing.

In fact, I've never been an engineer in my life: my job has always been (and probably will always be) to pilot mobile suits. My current weapon is the GX103-Balmung. It is a tremendous responsibility.

Before today, I was unaware that Kira Hibiki had a sister. It was…interesting, to say the least, when I found out. But more on that later.

I wouldn't have expected for him to tell me, of course – he's very reticent about his personal life. Sometimes, though, I feel as if I know him, though the only time we met, we were enemies.

_Before the Four Powers Pact was signed we had all been constantly on our toes. The nations we inhabited – Europa, the Kingdom of Scandanavia, the American Republic, and Japan – were among the few fully independent states in the world. We all scrambled to avoid the ire of the American Empire and its rival, the Eurasian Union - two superpowers who, combined, controlled 80 of the population of the Earth Sphere. _

_So any opportunity for any of us to enlarge our power base was a chance we could not resist. Power meant survival: too many formerly independent nations had already been absorbed into one empire or another over the past two hundred years. If any one of us showed even the minutest hint of weakness, we would be snapped up. _

_We had no intention of being prey._

_So instead, we fought. Not the massive, bloody, world-spanning wars that the Empire and the Union engaged in, but a melee in the shadows, battles for strategic hotspots or information centers or one of the few remaining oil wells on Earth, amongst ourselves and sometimes with Imperial agents._

_Kira and I met during one of these battles, a duel on the Indian Ocean. I was using the Noir, a new black-ops model designed by the state of France. He was in a clunky old Yamato-7, a space model designed to protect passenger convoys, completely unsuited for terrestrial movement, let alone covert operations. _

_Needless to say, I was soundly defeated. I was barely out of training, and expecting an easy mission – our intelligence wasn't too great, to say the least – and he had been preparing a lifetime for war. _

_He told me, as he was leaving, that he didn't kill me for two reasons: one, that we might be teammates one day (apparently he knew more than even my commanders did at the time); and two, because I had talent. _

_I'm not sure what the second remark meant. In fact, for months, all I could remember of that battle was, of all things, a spinning green seed. _

So it really freaked me out when they told me I had been selected because I possessed a trait called "The Seed Factor." Apparently the gene is so rare there hasn't been enough data to program it, so even among Coordinators less than one in two hundred seventy-eight million has it. They explained it this way:

When a person is put under enormous stress, life-threatening pressure, they are capable of superhuman feats. Mothers have been known to rip off car doors or lift vehicles in order to free their endangered babies. No one with this ability could control it, and it lasted for only a moment.

The scientists tell me most of the data we have is from Eurasian experiments, using mothers and babies from captured territories. I don't know why they felt the need to tell me that. I guess they derive a sort of grim satisfaction from it, because telling people usually elicits some sort of reaction. Well, they looked disappointed when I just blinked and asked them to get to the point.

Apparently, people with the Seed Factor can, with practice, channel and refine their superhuman abilities to augment any of their physical and mental properties – reaction time, judgment, endurance, et cetera. Obviously this would be a tremendous asset in warfare, if it could be harnessed.

I was the only person in all of Europa with a detected dominant gene. So Athrun Zala, Engineer-in-training, became Lieutenant Athrun Zala, Knight of the Teutonic Order. In the end the only thing that would make my father proud of me was a consequence of my birth, not my achievements.

I'm not a very good pilot without the Seed Factor. When it's not engaged, I can narrowly defeat an average soldier in an AMF-203 Blade, the Empire's standard assault mobile suit – and that is not a result of my skill, but my Gundam's strength.

And I haven't gotten very good at controlling my Seed Factor, so I'm pretty worthless in actual combat. I was extremely relieved when I heard that Kira Hibiki would be leading our team, as he's one of the foremost tactical geniuses in the world.

Meeting Lacus again was pretty awkward, though. She seemed really apologetic about my (now her) mother, but I told her it doesn't bother me too much. Mother still keeps in touch with me. It's my father that needs the apology.

Kira's sister…well, she was cute, but from the start I could tell she wasn't my type at all. Wispy hair like fine-grained sand, smoothly tanned skin, lioness eyes – but what a temper! When she saw Kira walking towards us she exploded, but when he announced he was going to command us I actually ran for cover. Everyone stared at me after that, like they weren't scared as well.

She's good to look at, I guess, but whenever she opens her mouth I feel a shudder crawl up my spine. It isn't so much the content of her speech as the volume of her voice.

All in all, though, I like our team. We're around the same age: Lacus and I are seventeen, Kira is eighteen, and Kira's little sister, whatever her name is, is sixteen. I think we work well together, and Captain le Creuset seems to be an excellent overseer.

Before I left for this mission, my father sent me a poem. I was confused, initially, because I didn't think he read poetry. Well, it turned out to be pretty self-explanatory:

**If**

_If you can keep your head when all about you  
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;  
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,  
But make allowance for their doubting too:  
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,  
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,  
Or being hated don't give way to hating,  
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;_

_If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;  
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,  
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster  
And treat those two impostors just the same:.  
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken  
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,  
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,  
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;_

_If you can make one heap of all your winnings  
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,  
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,  
And never breathe a word about your loss:  
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew  
To serve your turn long after they are gone,  
And so hold on when there is nothing in you  
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"_

_If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,  
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,  
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,  
If all men count with you, but none too much:  
If you can fill the unforgiving minute  
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,  
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,  
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!_

_-Rudyard Kipling_

I guess it kind of shows what he expects of me. Though, by those standards, I don't think he would be a Man, either.

Outside, it is nearly noon. I kind of wish I could feel the breeze on my back, or hear the pounding of the surf, but that would require my cockpit opening in the midst of this firefight: a decidedly lethal occurrence. Strange that I will never physically set foot on this land I'm helping to conquer.

I tromp, somewhat clumsily, to the expected engagement site, and draw my blade from its forearm holster. There is a cold, nervous knot in my stomach, as if I'm about to take an examination, or return to Father's home.

Still, this attack's gone pretty well. Looks like our first mission together will be a victory.

* * *

Please remember to review!

Next Chapter: probably Kira, unless someone wants to hear Lacus first.


	4. Kira

_To see a World in a Grain of Sand_

_And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,_

_Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand _

_And Eternity in an hour_

_- William Blake, from "Auguries of Innocence" _

* * *

_His gestation period was sixteen months, but he was decades in the making. His nerve cords are hundreds of times more dense than a normal human's. His heart beats twice as fast as y ours, but it is ten times stronger. He can stare at the noonday sun unblinking. He has the scent ability of a wolf and the strength of a bear. He has enough genius to bury an Einstein. Ladies, Gentlemen, I present to you, the inheritor of Earth and stars, --_

On the day that I met her, the sun curled from the basin of the earth into the sky, spilling red like an upturned paint-bucket across the world. I remember I almost had a cramp in my side: too many simulator runs the past week.

Today I was to meet my command, the team I would lead. It was something of a lot-draw: individuals with the Seed Factor were rare enough to warrant leniency in areas of discipline or even competence. Chance, however, favors the prepared mind, and thus the simulator runs for me. If they were slow on the uptake it would be my responsibility to compensate.

I was fantastically nervous, but could not let it show. Bottled up it boiled up within me the entire day, leaking slowly, ten thousand nervous ticks I wearied myself to suppress.

Not that I think it would have made any sort of difference, the way that day turned out.

There was a passing wind, and the bone-white fingers of the trees shuffled their stacks of leaves. I had decided to take a walk.

Immediately I felt the sun on my back: a red presence, liquid with fire, shafts of light sharp as crystal cutting the air to my sides. The ground hummed as I stepped. Trees continued to rustle: in my mind they were a thousand brilliant points of white, swerving and colliding, branches destroying symmetry as they clacked together.

I had heard something from one of the technicians: one of the team was a Newtype, like me. It could not have been Athrun, and I was fairly certain Cagalli had not suddenly developed powers in the two years since we'd seen each other.

I straightened the stiff starched collar that cut my neck and my fingers came down, worked with my cuffs. The wind was getting stronger. Here in its sibilant howl I could taste the sea, salt and surf-pound, and fury licked through me like a flame: high one moment, then gone. This was a park, and I did not want to be reminded of the mission to come, an invasion of a coastal chokepoint.

Trees, sun, wind. Flowers in blossom, scents a deluge drowning me. A storm of light: all colors, wild, petals skipping on air. I stopped, blinking, smelled dew.

_I felt another, dancing. _

An early riser, but that was unimportant. I had never seen a mind so bright.

Imagine the sun at the height of its ascent, a dot of brilliance, a mass of light dense enough to blaze a hole through the eye, and you will have seen one-tenth of her, as she appeared. There is nothing in language to compare.

She was a star, and twinkled as a star, but to her a star, even the Morning Star, was sullen, a dim circle of sordid fire.

She was approaching.

My legs moved as if tugged by her gravity, forward, ignoring the commands of my mind. I suddenly felt as if something had crawled up my back, leaving frost in its wake. My stomach jerked, marionette on a string. For some reason I did not know I reached up with a hand and mussed my hair. I instantly regretted it.

I saw a flash of pink – was that her hair, or just the light? – and skin like milk. She looked at me and suddenly I felt exposed, as if there wasn't possibly anything I could hide from her.

The worst part was, it was a good feeling.


End file.
